X Marks the Spot

Every daily newspaper in Canada has a story about the one-year anniversary of Stephane Dion's win at the Liberal leadership convention.

There is one thing they all say that makes me, and, surely, candidates, worry: "But insiders say Dion is privately advising Liberals to be ready for an election as early as February."

February? Of all 12, it is the worst month.

Trans fats, it turns out, are not male fats that dress up as female fats. They are, according to Wikipedia, "a type of unsaturated fat with trans isomer fatty acid(s)." That is, I think you'll agree, much less interesting. And it's why I yawned when this release came across my desk explaining that the McGuinty government is going to ban trans fats in schools.

Crisco, the infallible Wikipedia tells me, first commercialized trans fats in 1911. For the past hundreds years, we've all been getting fat on the stuff and giving ourselves heart disease. It's practically a tradition now, but McGuinty wants to stop it.

His ban is probably a good idea. It won't stop high school students from ingesting trans fats, and it certainly won't stop fat people from becoming fat, but it will stop the government from helping high school students become fat. Now the government can blame the people for becoming fat and sick drains on our health care system.

It's like the junk food ban in schools - kids will steal eat junk food, just not from vending machines in the schools. Instead, they will have to walk to convenience stores, which alone will keep them from becoming fat and sick.

Ban on, McGuinty. Ban on.

Paul Szabo, Mississauga South MP and the hardest-working man on Parliament Hill, took some time out to speak to The Mississauga News today before Question Period.

He was forthcoming, funny, and patient with this undereducated reporter. In other words, a brand new Paul Szabo. He seems reinvigorated by his work as chair of the Ethics Committee during this Mulroney-Schreiber money exchange study.

He also told me that he's having trouble getting Brian Mulroney to come to committee to take Schreiber's place in the centre ring of the circus.

"I'm having a little difficulty nailing down Brian Mulroney for Tuesday," said Szabo. "His spokesperson, Luc Lavoie, said okay, but then Luc stepped down, there's a new firm, and now that the Mulroney correspondance is in the public domain, there seems to be some concern about whether they should actually get their copy and study it and be better prepared, so they're balking on Tuesday. It might be Thursday, but there are rumours the house may rise for the Christmas break on Wednesday."

Szabo also said his committee - even though he has had a pencil thrown at him, been called a "son-of-a-b**ch" and a "disgrace," apologized for the public pantsing of Karlheinz Schreiber, made a lion jump through a flaming hoop and ridden a horse around the committee room while standing on his head and wearing sequins - is not, I repeat, NOT a circus.

"That's only tired rhetoric to call us that," he said while juggling chainsaws. "Judge us by our work. We're going to be judged by the public, and those are the people to whom we're accountable."

He also said people who expect the committee to work like a courtroom don't know what they're talking about.

"We're doing a study. If you understand what a study is, you'll understand why people can easily criticize us because we're not delivering justice, we're not examining, we're not like a court of law, we're not a public inquiry, we're doing a study, and the study is on the matters relating to the airbus settlement Brain Mulroney got for $2.1 million."

Here's why I really like Szabo as an MP. He seems to love his job, like really love the job, and not necessarily the political side of it.

"I really am honoured to be a member of parliament, and I have tremendous respect for the House of Commons, and I see this as a wonderful opportunity to showcase Parliament doing good work and showing how good we can do it," he said, as an elephant balanced on one leg behind him.

Szabo said the following when I asked him if chairing a committee a former prime minister is expected to testify in front of is daunting: "Prime Ministers are persons...They're regular people. They laugh, they are sad, they're happy, they're looking forward to things, they're human beings, they need social interaction. I've been here 14 years, this is very interesting, but I wouldn't say I'm overwhelmed."

This post was actually supposed to be about a brief email interview I did with Macleans magazine's Kady O'Malley, who has been liveblogging the committee hearings on her blog.

I asked her, among other things, how she rated Szabo's performance as chair.

She kindly and thoroughly responded:

"I think Szabo is making every effort to keep the high melodrama at committee to a dull roar; he may not always succeed, but it's a noble goal, and he's clearly managed to tuck away his own partisan leanings in order to be as fair as possible. It really is a trial by fire, as far as his relatively new status as chair of this particular committee; in just over a month, he's had to contend with everything from hostile routine motions to the logistics of springing a witness from jail. That's more than most committee chairs will have to deal with during an entire career. He also manages to lay down the law without completely losing his temper, although he does get a bit snappish at times. Not that I blame him.

"Is it a thankless job? Pretty much, but I think he genuinely enjoys it; he is a true devotee of Parliament, and it shows.

"Best person for the job? That's a tough one. There are a few -- not many , but a few - MPs -not on this committee, but in the House - who are more deft at untangling the rules of procedure, and wrangling members into submission, but he's shown himself to be a quick study, and has the benefit of wise advice from people like Derek Lee, who literally wrote the book on the powers of committee to summon witnesses and subpoena documents, not to mention the institutional knowledge within Parliament itself, from the Law Clerk to the staff of this particular committee. Historically, he's never been a kneejerk partisan pit bull, which means he has earned the respect of members of other parties as well, which helps - although when tempers flare, it's easy for that to be forgotten in a fit of pencil-throwing pique."

The next episode of the Karlheinz and Brian show airs tomorrow at 11 a.m.

I'm going to my first Christmas Party tonight. Actually, it's called a Festivus Party so that everyone feels involved, and I agree with that title. I celebrate Christmas, though, so I'm calling it a Christmas party. Actually, an Xmas party.

Several years ago I wrote a commentary for CBC Radio expressing my distaste for Christmas. As someone who has never used the holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, I thought it was cheapening the occasion to use the day as an excuse to covet consumer electonics and drink far too much. And, of course, there is the annual argument over whether Christmas trees, etc, alienate people of other faiths.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I proposed that we all celebrate Xmas. Xmas could become a state-sanctioned event. Christians, the ones who want to use the time to throw a birthday party for Jesus, still can celebrate that way. Muslims and Jews and whoever else can still celebrate whatever they want to celebrate. But everyone, religious people and otherwise, can celebrate Xmas, because Xmas doesn't mean anything, it's just a day for fun and gifts and a reason to hold parties for 20 days straight and dance with people you're not supposed to dance with.

So, the 19 days of Xmas begin today.

Who says no one reads my blog?

Important people read it. Mississauga South MP Paul Szabo, for example, reads it, presumably after one of his assistants scans it to determine whether or not it's worth reading.

But not only did Szabo read my blog entry about Paul Szabo, he commented on it, too. Bloggers like nothing more than comments. Comments are the crack of the blogosphere.

And not only did Szabo comment on my blog entry about Paul Szabo, but he commented favourably about the time we spent talking to one another.

"It was actually a refreshing break to receive your call for an interview," he wrote.

This is remarkable because Szabo has, in the past, given this reporter the impression that the veteran MP can't think of anything more demeaning than answering my questions.

Anyway, he's totally my new BFF, and when the Ethics Committee returns to Schreiber tomorrow, then Mulroney on Thursday, I will be sitting in front of the television with my foam "Szabo #1" finger.

I don't know a whole lot about Joe Clark. I know he was the prime minister for nine months between Pierre Trudeau's two reigns, and that people make fun of him for letting his minority government fall on a budget vote when he should've known what the outcome would be. I also know he was the Progressive Conservative leader during part of the right-wing split that let the Liberals easily stay in power for as long as they did under Jean Chretien.

Other than that superficial stuff, don't know much at all. It was with interest, then, that I saw our 18th Prime Minister in the newspaper for two different stories this week. Both make you feel terrible for the man once called "Joe Who?" by the media.

The first story was about Joe Clark being punched in the face by a stranger. It happened in November, but the story just got out last week.

"He may well have been aiming to break either my glasses or nose but he did neither," Clark told the media. "My nose sort of bloodied briefly, internally, but nothing serious. I was stunned. It hasn't happened to me before."

Then, the second Joe Clark news item. It was confirmed at the Ethics Committee hearing into the Airbus-Mulroney-Schreiber fandango that foreign interests had, as had been suspected, helped Brian Mulroney beat Joe Clark for the leadership of the PCs after Clark let his government fall.

As reported in the Globe and Mail story: “The money came from myself, and from the Strauss family, and probably from the [Christian] Social Union,” said Schreiber, adding the amount he contributed was about $25,000.

Gracefully (in my opinion), Clark has refused to comment on the matter.

So, it has been a bad week for one of our old prime ministers. I feel bad for the guy, and think I might send him an Xmas card.

Dear Monsieur Dion,

You might remember me from other letters, such as "A letter to the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition," the first in this series.

In my first letter, I gave some outsider advice that I thought might be able to help you. It appeared, at the time, that you needed all the help you could get.

In this letter, I'm going to give you advice, but it is advice I'd like to see all parties pick up.

It might seem strange that I'm giving you this advice since it's about the GST, and in the first letter I told you to stop talking about the GST. You were musing, at the time, about considering reversing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cuts to the GST. Under no circumstance should you do that, unless you hate moving so much that you'd rather stay in Stornoway for the rest of your political career.

But here's a positive thing you can do with the GST.

Simply put, you should offer in your next platform to give school boards a 100 per cent GST rebate.

The school boards across Canada, which currently get a 68 per cent rebate on the GST, are begging for the same treatment the Liberals gave municipalities in 2004.

You should give them what they want. It is a good idea for two reasons.

First, it makes a lot of people happy while not costing much money. It'll cost a measly $200 million per year. When you make school board trustees happy, a lot of people hear about it. Having spent a lot of time in the past two years at school board meetings, I have learned that trustees spend a lot of time talking and appear to love talking more than anything else. They will, then, tell a lot of people about the plan over the course of an election campaign, and word of mouth is good advertising.

Also, if you unroll it properly (and aren't upstaged by more interesting and superficial happenings), you will also get newspaper coverage in nearly every market as community newspaper reporters figure out what the promise will mean for their local school boards. In Mississauga, it will save the public board nearly $7 million, and the Catholic board slightly less.

Second, you can use the move to prove how much smarter you are than the Conservatives.

The Conservatives cut the GST by two points, which was a bad idea, according to every living economist on Earth. It helped nearly no one, and hurt the government's pocket book. With this promise, you'll be cutting the GST and you'll be helping a specific group, and a group - students - that no one hates.

For added value, you can also take the time to remind everyone that it was a Liberal government that gave municipalities a 100 per cent GST rebate back in 2004. Then voters will start thinking, 'wow, these Liberals are smart and urban, and care about our children.'

There really aren't many ways the federal government can help students in elementary and secondary schools since it's not your jurisdiction, but this will allow you to get in on that without angering your provincial counterparts.

In other words, this a no-lose proposition. The only people who could possibly be angry are the people who run the hospitals and universities, which don't get a 100 per cent rebate either. If you're feeling really generous, you can offer the same deal to them.

Sincerely,
Craig MacBride
Reporter, blogger, and self-appointed know-it-all
The Mississauga News

I watched parts of Mulroney testifying today. All I can tell is that Brian Mulroney made a mistake, but that he is, in fact, a saint, according to Brian Mulroney.

PHOTO: Clearing off my car yesterday outside the offices of The Mississauga News. I did this at least seven times yesterday. Photo by Sabrina Byrnes

I hate snow storms. I hate that the lower legs of my pants are wet all day. I hate that my toes never truly thaw out. I hate cleaning snow and ice off my car. And I really hate running out of windshield washer fluid while on the highway.

But people change when there are snow storms, and that balances it all out.

I don't have a driveway, but I do have a car, so I have street parking. Unfortunately, after the plows come by, there aren't many spots on the street that aren't filled with snow.

I found the smallest snow bank on my street, and I tried to reverse my car through it. Several times, I tried.

A French-Canadian man was watching my lack of progress from two spots up, where he was clearing off his car so he wouldn't have to do it in the morning.

He walked back to my car, pushed some of the snow over with his shovel, and then spent five minutes teaching me how to parallel park into a snow bank. "This is nothing," he said. "I spent 20 years parking in worse than this (in Quebec)."

(The trick to parallel parking into a snow bank is to not use your brakes. No matter how scared you are that you're going to hit the car behind you, don't use your brakes. You must trust that the snow bank will stop you. It's frightening.)

Then this morning, I walked out to my car, the back end of it housed snugly in the snow bank I left it in.

The plow had come by again. There was a wall of snow up to my knees against the driver's side door. I shovelled myself out. The guy beside me was shovelling himself out. We talked like old neighbours. Then we noticed an old woman trying to tear down the wall of snow around her car with only a broom.

We went to help her.

That French-Canadian guy wouldn't have usually spoken to me. He wouldn't have had a reason to. I wouldn't have struck up a conversation with the other shoveller this morning - we wouldn't have had the time, or any reason. And we certainly wouldn't have gone to spend time with an old lady - it would have been a strange thing for us to do.

The snow storm, however, gave us the reason to interact with one another. And it did brighten my day. It gave us all purpose, individual and collective. And, frankly, it was kind of fun. It's worth the wet pants and numb toes.

There's trouble brewing in the British newspaper The Guardian. They're calling it "The Amis Racist Row."

It's a long story about how it became a big deal, but it started with English author Martin Amis saying something about Muslims on television. People took exception to what he said, and now he's defending himself, most notably in an essay called, "No, I am not a racist."

Martin Amis was one of the few writers, along with Kurt Vonnegut and Canadian Douglas Coupland, who first made me truly interested in books. Amis, particularly his books Time's Arrow and London Fields, did more than simply change my world; he shook it like an Etch-a-Sketch.

Regardless of all this 'racist row' stuff, there was one thought in the essay that I found particularly interesting.

"What you say about something is never your last word on any subject. But what you write should aspire to be just that: your last word."

I agree with him. Sadly, as someone who is paid, in part, to opine daily, I don't always get the time I need to think something through completely, or to read enough to fully understand the implications of an action. In the run-up to the referendum on electoral reform, I hopped the fence so many times I could be an Olympic hurdler.

Also, I'm sure if I had the wherewithal to go through my nearly three years worth of blog entries, I'm sure I would find numerous errors in thought or expression that I now regret.

What I'm saying is, because of the internet, because of instant publishing, writing has changed. I agree that what one writes should aspire to be one's last word on a subject. With little time to consider one's words, however, it is an aspiration that will very rarely be met online.

Online, writing is talking.

I'm not saying anything new here, but it's all worth considering again when reading.

The Christmas gift to the Liberals came today in the form of a new poll.

"The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey puts the Tories at 30 per cent support, in a statistical tie with the Liberals who are up four points to 32 per cent. 'It's a pretty significant drop on a one-week basis,' said Harris-Decima president Bruce Anderson."

The Canadian Press story goes on to say that Mulroney-Schreiber, the isotopes, and the handling of the Bali climate change summit, have hurt Harper.

Does this mean we're going to an election in February, before Harper has time to present Canadians with a new budget, and a shiny, new bicycle for each citizen? It might. Is it worth speculating on, as we have all year? Probably not.

Justin Trudeau, more commonly known as "the one," is giving a speech in Toronto tonight.

He is expected to make his case for a revamped Liberal Party of Canada, one that, shockingly, has principles and a purpose, and, preferably, a new leader.

He's not going to be that leader, though. Not yet. Or is he? The mystery continues, though my week does not. Will write again Sunday, when I'm back in the office.

I had to work yesterday (someone has to), and I had three armed robberies to write about.

This morning, Louie Rosella, our crime reporter, was greeted with an armed robbery at the TD Canada Trust just down the street from our office.

Then news that jazz legend and Mississauga resident Oscar Peterson died last night.

This is the wrong business to be in if you're looking for the Christmas spirit.

***

Also the wrong place to be in if you're looking for the Christmas spirit, or specific Christmas gifts: Costco. Spent 20 minutes there running around trying to find gifts for my parents. The gifts I was looking for were not there, though I did get (for myself) the Steve Martin autobio Born Standing Up at a great discount.

From page 3 of Born Standing Up: "I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years."

***

We reporters have been led to believe that we're having our chains loosened early today since it is Christmas Eve. We're expecting to get out of here at 3 p.m., provided nothing terrible happens.

To all my regular readers, Merry Xmas. I'll be back in about 70 hours, after a whirlwind celebration of the birth of Santa Claus in a manger at the North Pole 2008 years ago.

Days like this make one relieved to have the good luck to be a Canadian.

If I remember correctly, we've only had to deal with two political assassinations in our history, that of Thomas D'Arcy McGee in 1868 and Pierre LaPorte in 1970.

Pakistan has had to deal with four assassinations, or "suspicious deaths," in the same political family in 1979, 1985, 1996, and earlier today.

By no means do I have a good grasp on Pakistani politics, but I'm yet to hear anything that could reassure a person the country will come out of all this okay.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is coming to town.

He'll be at the Heartland Town Centre at 7:30 a.m. on New Year's Eve. Personally, I hate him for this, since it means I also have to be at the Heartland Town Centre at the ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m. I can't actually imagine a time when I'd like to be at the Heartland Town Centre, but I'm pretty certain 7:30 a.m. won't be it.

Anyway, this whole Harper at Heartland thing reminds of a time way back, all the way back in 2006, when a hopeful leader of the opposition held court in the 2001 Audio Video at Heartland Town Centre and told the country he would chop the GST down to 5% if they elected him into office. The move, we were told, would save us all dozens of dollars each.

Stephen Harper has made true on that promise, and I suspect he's returning to Heartland to remind everyone of the promise he made, and the promise he kept, and the other promises he'll make and keep if we give him a majority government. He'll probably also remind us that Liberal leader Stephane Dion is not in Mississauga for New Year's Eve because he's too busy with urban intellectuals, wearing a monocle and being soft on terrorists and hard on the regular, hard-working, tax-paying Canadians who love strip malls, Tim Hortons coffee, and Don Cherry.

...it's over.

2007 was a long year. Everyone keeps saying that years get shorter as you get older, but I don't think that's true. Thinking back, the provincial election seems far in the past, when it actually ended less than three months ago.

Or how about Wajid Khan? His move across to the Conservatives was one of the first stories I wrote in 2007. I can't believe it has only been a year, or that he's now an Independent.

Anyways, the year's over, I'm ready for a one-day recovery from all this Xmas mayhem, and then back to the grindstone, with my eyes firmly on the prize, that beautiful new holiday on February 18.

Thanks for the holiday, Dalton. And Stephen, it was nice to see you in town this morning; thanks for the tax cut. I have already used my January savings to purchase drinks for this evening.